The federal government this week launched consultations aiming to "address issues related to the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food" in order to develop a food policy for Canada. History and economics both teach us beyond any doubt that we do not need government in order to be able to feed ourselves.

A free press is one of the bulwarks of a modern, democratic society. Thomas Jefferson himself famously preferred newspapers without a government to government without newspapers. Yet there is an underappreciated link between freedom of the press, on the one hand, and economic freedom, on the other.

A large majority of people do not smoke, or no longer smoke, and tend to accept certain bits of conventional wisdom without question. Smoking tobacco being harmful to one's health, smokers therefore need to be protected--even those who would choose to, say, patronize their own smoking restaurants and bars. And we can count on government to enforce regulations and bans to this effect. But what if smokers get something from their "vice," and that this can be explained in economic terms? The answer could be found in the concept of consumer surplus.

I have known the Heritage Foundation folks for close to 15 years. Some of their policy recommendations would clearly be deemed too conservative for the Canadian context, but even their foes would admit that they are an incredibly powerful and well-organized group.

What happens when the private sector takes over? While airports may seem like monopolies which have no incentive to reduce ticket prices, it is important to recognize the effective and potential competition with which they are faced.

The federal government seems to be seriously considering the privatization of Canada's major airports. It has asked Credit Suisse AG, a top investment bank, to analyze several privatization options. This would be good news indeed for the Canadian air travel industry, and ultimately for Canadian travellers.

When people think about innovations that could help reduce greenhouse gases and avoid what they imagine will be catastrophic climate change in a few decades, they usually think about things like solar power, wind power, and electric cars. But the future of reducing emissions isn't just from renewable energy, but better use of oil energy as well.

While the city of Toronto passes rules to make it easy for ride-sharing companies to operate legally, the province of Quebec is set to make it so difficult that it chases those companies away. If the government does drive Uber out, it would constitute a significant harm to the thousands of Uber drivers, and hundreds of thousands of Uber riders, in the province.

My MEI colleagues and I have signed, in recent years, a number of texts explaining among other things the merits of oil and gas development in Canada, and of transporting oil by pipeline. This is enou...

The lessons to draw from the Danish model are clear, even if they're not the ones Bernie Sanders would like us to draw. The Danes benefited from low taxes in order to get rich, and they remain fairly well-off thanks to a light regulatory touch, but their extensive welfare state is not the great success it's cracked up to be.

Despite a falling crime rate, policing costs have nearly doubled in Canada over the past 25 years. In this context, it makes absolutely no sense to soak up police officers' time with tasks that should not logically be included in their job descriptions. Why not refocus the work of police officers on their essential duties, and employ other categories of personnel for auxiliary or administrative tasks?

Without the forest and the economic activity it generates, the North Shore, the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and all the other forest regions of Quebec would not have experienced the same level of economic development that has benefited all Quebecers. However, forestry activity could fall sharply in the fairly near future.

This problem is also a Canadian concern. A May 2015 survey of high-impact Canadian firms revealed that "finding employees to expand and scale their business ranks as one of the top challenges identified by entrepreneurs." Lower and less progressive taxation would help attract and retain highly specialized labour.